Waiting on the Lord, the Second Collision

Before I became a Christian, I met Janet at the office where we both worked. I was between my bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

Janet and I became friends and, since she lived close to the office, we frequently walked to her apartment for lunch. During that year, I’d been reading the Bible, and was encountering many passages I couldn't understand.

Exod. 4:21 begins the story of how God delivered the Israelites from their 400-year enslavement to the Egyptians. The Lord told Moses that he, the Lord, would “harden...[Pharaoh’s] heart.” This made it sound like Pharaoh was a puppet, which confused and bewildered me. The various plagues also seemed unjust, because the citizens of Egypt, who perhaps had not all enslaved Israelites, had to suffer through all the plagues. Most unfair of all, I felt, was the plague of death on the firstborn sons, who had harmed nobody.

I also couldn't tolerate certain passages. Gen. 18:16-33 is a conversation between Abraham and God, in which it is clearly implied that Lot is a righteous man. When men come to Lot’s house, wanting to have sex with his male guests, Lot says, “No...I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them.” (Gen. 19:8)

Lot was exposing his daughters to rape. I could see no other interpretation.

When I discussed these passages with Janet, she replied, “I believe there’s an explanation for them.”

Apparently she didn’t have any explanations, but her trust in God overrode what offended me in these passages. Eventually, after many such conversations, and some unmistakable encounters with God, I became a Christian.

Several years later, after the Meeting for Worship in the Name of Jesus that changed my life forever, the character of our conversations changed. We still talked about our respective walks with God, but during these conversations, I was completely focused on waiting before the Lord, to discover what he expected.

After a few months of this, Janet accused me of “judging” her. This was ironic, because never before had I been less focused on what other people were doing. It was hard for me to see how she could have felt “judged,” when I wasn’t giving much attention to her behavior.

I finally surmised that possibly the “judgment” she sensed was from God—but I really didn’t know.

A few years later, when I’d moved to Wisconsin to take a job, and we were corresponding, I wrote, “I’m finally resigned to us going our different ways, spiritually.”

In her reply, she referred to the above, adding, “I suppose that means you want nothing further to do with me.”

Clearly she was in a snit, and I could only conclude that deep down, in her heart of hearts, she credited herself with my conversion. Therefore, it was a product of her ego.